CACrown ArchivesThe cinema collection
Menu
Research dossier · People & Ideas

Albert Boutwell

American politician (1904–1978)

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
People and ideasInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionMay 16, 2026
Entity authorityQ2637691 ↗
Source-derived summary

Albert Burton Boutwell (November 13, 1904 – February 3, 1978) was the 19th lieutenant governor of Alabama. A Democrat, Boutwell served Governor John Malcolm Patterson of the same political party, from 1959 until 1963. Earlier in his political career he served in the state senate, including as senate president, and later as mayor of Birmingham.

Early life and education

Boutwell was born in Montgomery, Alabama in 1904. Both his grandfathers were Confederate veterans. He graduated from the then-segregated Greenville High School, and then attended the University of Alabama, receiving a Bachelor of Law degree in 1928. While attending university, Boutwell was a member of two fraternities: the Sigma Delta Kappa law fraternity and the Alpha Epsilon Phi honorary Forensic Fraternity. In his final year, Boutwell was also President of the Student Government Association and other groups.

Career

After admission to the Alabama bar, Boutwell practiced law in Birmingham, for many years, first with Sam Pointer during the Great Depression, then with Burgin Hawkins, as Bouthwell, Pointer & Hawkins. He was also active in the Birmingham Junior Chamber of Commerce (once becoming its president, and also becoming a national vice-president).

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Albert Boutwell” is american politician (1904–1978). The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Albert, Boutwell and American, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA productive starting point for separating a subject’s documented career from later reputation and commemoration. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1904, 1978, 1959, 1963—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. For this dossier, Albert, Boutwell and American is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “american politician (1904–1978)” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 16, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2637691. The first chronological checks are 1904, 1978, 1959 and 1963.

Critical limits

Public reputation and documentary evidence do not always develop together; absence from a summary is not evidence of historical absence. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Albert Boutwell”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Albert Boutwell primary sources, Albert Boutwell archive and Albert research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Albert Boutwell”?
  2. Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
  3. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
Subject index

Search terms from this dossier

Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Albert Boutwell” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.